The world blinked back into being like a light switch being turned on. He was still in the same position he'd adopted before deactivating his Talent, only he was covered, just absolutely dripping with hot, wet, disgustingly ropey gore. His arms blared pain at him an instant later, like he'd picked up an ember from a doused fire, only to realize it was still hot. Whatever fluid he was covered in had started steaming, then smoking slightly — almost cooking, but apparently cooling his arms down in the process. He was rather glad to note that his arms had not been crushed. The pain continued, but was rapidly dulling; he deprioritized the self-check and turned attention outwards.

  Had they won? Lost? He looked around, thrilled to be able to see… well, not very much, really. It was still nighttime, after all, but there was still a small amount of light in the distant sky and the world around was still lit with lifeforms glowing in all sorts of shades and colors.

  Nat looked around quickly, shaking off the disorientation of going from pitch darkness to a kaleidoscope of color, trying to orient and locate Lyn and the gigantic Ber. He couldn't miss it. The Ber still a tremendous, dark silhouette in front of him, though its position had shifted backwards a few steps from where he'd seen it last.

  He kept his eyes on the Ber and glanced behind him to find Lyn had moved further back from where he'd been standing, but was still half-sitting, half-laying on the ground. Their palms were smoking like his arms were — probably heat from contact with him, like before. Clearly there'd been some passage of time since he'd deactivated his talent, but not enough to matter, it seemed.

  He returned his gaze to the giant Ber. It was holding perfectly still, almost like it had been for him in the frozen world of his Talent, but seemed to be holding the remaining stump of a ruined claw arm out, as if disbelieving. Yeah, you and me both, buddy, Nat's inner voice offered.

  The giant form moved impossibly fast then, bringing its second claw up — in aggression? Preparing another strike? Nat couldn't help but twitch with fear at the sight, indistinct as it was, and reflexively began to put his arms up in an echo of the pose he'd left his Talent in.

  The motion of the claw halted instantaneously, and instead the massive shadow leapt backwards multiple meters, then froze where it landed. Nat remained frozen in place as it seemed to take a moment to consider. Another sudden burst of motion and it was scuttling away, while still facing Nat, at a speed that seemed utterly impossible for the size of the creature.

  Well alright then.

  Nat lowered his arms and turned back to Lyn, who was much more easily seen, with the glowing eyes and pearlescent white scales, even if they were currently covered in blood. Or ichor.

  It was steaming somewhat less than what was covering Nat. Come to think of it, there was an arc of half-cooked chunky bits that started at Nat and spread out behind him. Nat looked away, which immediately put it out of his mind before he became nauseous. “Well, I think we can call that a win, yes?”

  “Absolutely. Any fight you can walk away from is a win. Could you do me a favor and find my leg, before something wanders off with it?”

  Lyn's voice sounded off to Nat. It had none of the slightly musical tones that usually accompanied it. Wait, what?

  Nat couldn't see well enough to tell if this was a joke or not. Lyn didn't sound happy, but nor were they screaming in pain. So, an exaggeration? Had they taken a glancing hit like his? Painful, but not consequential enough they couldn't joke about it.

  He decided to go along with it, and play it straight. “Sure. Where is it?”

  “Probably back towards where we were sitting, near the blanket.”

  Nat was game to play along, with the threat having fled. He walked back towards their original position and made to look around.

  Oh. There it was. That was barely a leg, more just a foot and some skin, really, sticking out of the ruins of a boot. “Oh. I, uh, found it. Well, a foot.”

  “Oh, good. That'll make things so much easier.”

  “What, to reattach? You're a medic, right? You can reattach it?” He picked the foot up by the intact heel of the boot, mostly because it was the cleanest spot. There was a lot of blood, it hadn't been severed, but pulverized.

  “Hmm? Oh, no. There's no reattaching limbs like that for silverpaw. I need it to eat.”

  “To eat?”

  “Yeah, it would take two or three times as long to regrow if I had to replace all that mass hunting low compatibility Ber — and harder yet, I'd have to acquire copper. This is much easier; lucky, really.”

  Lyn snapped their fingers, and summoned Moira's arc.

  “How'd we do? Everybody okay? What happened?” The tinny voice asked anxiously, even before the arc had completely finished forming.

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  Nat had walked back over to Lyn, and held his arm out, awkwardly proferring the boot. His mind just refused to process this at the moment, the horror of it just slid past him.

  “No deaths, a veritable smorgasbord of burned flesh — mostly mine, some Nat, and I'm down one foot. I think the leg bone is intact, so it's just the foot and tissue damage. And, oh no! My favorite boots! This will be a pain to replace or repair.”

  “Burns? I can't see very well at the moment.” Nat looked down at his arms. It was hard to tell what was what, given that he was covered with… a lot of … something. Only there wasn't any shirt left on them. Oh, wow okay yeah my shirt is a goner, well, what's left of it. He couldn't do a visual inspection in this light, and did not want to rub any of the remains of the Ber into any wounds. It would have to wait.

  “Yeah, I lost my eye membranes — that's fine, that's what they're for — our eyes don't regenerate. There's also light tissue damage anywhere that was exposed while facing towards Nat. Didn't burn my leathers, though, so that's good.”

  “Let's get back to the others before anything else happens. Nat, can you grab your blanket? You're going to have to carry me. Wait, you know what? Let's see if we can't find some larger intact meat — we're all going to need to eat.”

  “I thought you were going to eat your foot?”

  “I am, but that's just replacement. I'll need more to fuel the whole process. Regeneration is hungry work.”

  Nat found some decently sized chunks of whatever this was that he could manage to carry, and wrapped those in the blanket — it was likely ruined, anyway.

  With the blanket over a shoulder, and Lyn cradled in his arms, they headed back to the carriage — slowly. Lyn was surprisingly heavy for their size — he said as much.

  “Unfortunately I can't do anything about that, like some Ber'Duun can. Sorry, Nat.”

  The ground and sky was still filled with activity — vibrant lights and deep shadows intermingled. The surrounding fauna were clearly still agitated, but panic had since subsided, and many of them were blinking out, their glows extinguished or obscured as they returned to nests and burrows.

  It made the return trip fantastical, and he commented on that too. Moira, kept present by Lyn during their return, chimed in at that. “Ooh, that sounds beautiful. I wish I could see it.”

  “Why can't you?” Nat had wondered this before, and this seemed like a reasonable time to ask. They weren't going far, but it was far slower than their trip out had been and gave them a few minutes of time to reflect.

  “Sound is easy to transfer via a simple electrical arc. The perturbations of it that permit it to pass sound out, also allow it to pass back in, which I can detect and process. Unfortunately electrical arcs can't ‘see’ the same way. Well, technically they can, but it requires something to do the translation. That's complicated — this is easy, so we do this.”

  They came up on the spot the carriage had been left. The horses were back in harness, Tanner and the coach master — crossbow in hand in her case — were peering out the doors, each from one side, and apparently a campfire had been hastily extinguished.

  “Ho, the camp!” Lyn shouted. They turned to Nat and gave a quick aside, “Quick life lesson, for a longer life. When approaching a group of armed, nervous people — allies or strangers alike — it's best to let them know you're coming. It's especially important when travelling, especially alone.”

  “Informative. I'll keep that in mind,” Nat rasped out. He was not exactly built for strength or endurance, and was reaching his limits.

  He finished his approach to the ex-campfire, and helped Lyn down onto a small fallen log that had been rolled into place.

  Taking a cue from the attitude of the returning party, Tanner and the coach master both relaxed somewhat. They warily got down from the carriage, but kept looking around — the night wasn't quite as filled with blinking, flashing, glowing things as it had been, but it hadn't returned anywhere close to normal yet.

  The coach master stayed near the carriage, but did not move to let the horses back out of harness yet. Tanner approached Lyn, his muzzle lifted, sniffing.

  “Land below! What happened? Are you hurt? How much of that is your blood?”

  “Scrav. Yes. Too much. Get that fire going again, would you, Tanner? I need to cauterize some of this, and we've got meat to cook.”

  Apparently Lyn was all business when hurt. Nat understood entirely.

  “Scared a baby scrav and got the foot clipped off, eh? Nasty.”

  “Not a baby, no.”

  “Oof, juvenile got spooked by whatever…” he gestured up at the sky, filled with birds and other creatures out long past their usual roost, “this is and step on your foot? It scared the daylights out of us, and the swarm of spooked Ber almost had the horses bolt.”

  “No, an adult attacked us.” Lyn held up a chunk of the meat. “Can you put this on the fire? I'm going to need to eat to replace a lot of blood.”

  The coach master, who had been listening quiet from her place near the horses chimed in at that. “What's that, then?”

  “Scrav meat, obviously.” Lyn's voice had gotten even less friendly.

  “Obviously nothing. You said it attacked. You pick up the remains of a rival it was eating without noticing it? Then climb a tree or something while it unburrowed?”

  “No, this is from the scrav that attacked us. Just the claw. It ran off. Well, most of it did. Minus the claw.”

  “Wait, so, let me see if I got this right. There's a whole claw of scrav meat just laying there? How much would you say? A hundred kilos or so? Medium-size adult?”

  Nat decided to chime in and save everyone from Lyn's building irritation. “Well, not whole, but way more than that. It was dark, so I may be off by a bit, but I'd estimate the Ber was upwards of ten tons or more, so figure the claws were what, a fifth of the total weight or so, cut that in half, so, about a ton maybe?”

  The coach master was staring at him like he was an idiot for some reason. “And you just… left it there?”

  “Yes…?”

  Nat couldn't quite make out what she'd said in response, but it might have been, “Save me from imbeciles.”

  Tanner saved him from further embarrassment. “Nat, how much of it is recoverable, would you say?”

  “A third, maybe? It really is in a lot of pieces, though there are some big chunks I couldn't lift, so I brought back what was carryable. Some of it is really cooked though.”

  The coach master looked at Tanner, raised an eyebrow. Tanner raised one in return. Nat's opinion on the matter was clearly being dismissed from further consideration for reasons he couldn't fathom.

  “… Hundreds of kilos.” She put her head in her hands a moment, to gather strength for the next question. “Is it safe now, do you think? Any scravs left?”

  “Well, there weren't any more. Though there are a lot of Ber and other animals out, obviously.”

  “Okay, we need to move fast. Pack up the camp, we're moving. Nat, lead us to it. Lyn, let's get you into the coach.”

  “Fine, but then this is mine.” Lyn said, as they bit deeply into the slightly roasted meat.